Someone asked me about my comments about marriage while live blogging the debate offline (since I forgot to enable comments, which I have now done). Many Christians are in favor of a ‘defense of marriage’ act. The lesson is the same one Christians have never learned through centuries of history. Lets use a very clear example here. In the middle ages, the English government fluctuated back and forth between Roman Catholic and Protestant. When each was in power, they used that power against each other. By doing so, there was implicit acknowledgment of the government’s power to do this. So when the other side was in power, they took their turn. That’s what will happen if we pass a defense of marriage act as well. Eventually, there could be enough votes to overturn this act, and pass one declaring that marriage is between any two people, and then they’ll try to use that to force churches to perform marriage ceremonies for homosexuals. And we won’t have a leg to stand on in challenging the law, because we implicitly stated that the government had a right to define marriage and to legislate it.
This is the way of things. When the protestants came here, they had learned their lesson. There was no authority granted to the central government to establish religion. In the same vein, we were all protected from the dangers of the “church” (obviously not the true church) coming to power. (Bad for the church and for the people). However, we have forgotten that lesson. Over time the visible church (here forward the ‘church’) has begun to see the federal government as a convenient way of making people behave the way they want them to.
Yet that is not our call. There is not one place in scripture that calls the church to impose a veneer of propriety and morality on an unregenerate society. Paul lived in the time of debauched Rome, and nowhere did he call on the government to outlaw the excesses of the populace. Paul realized, as we should, that the only way to change men is from the inside out. Outside of God’s work of grace in the heart of a believer no amount of overbearing government action is going to make them “behave”.
This is all just an outworking of the roles of our governments as set down in the constitution. The federal government has a very specific purpose. It handles tasks that cannot be relegated to the states specifically related to our interaction with foreign nations. We cannot have individual states negotiating treaties and such with foreign nations, or fighting wars all on their own. As a result, the federal government manages those things. All domestic responsibilities are reserved to the states.
Now, at the state level, there is nothing legally preventing them from establishing such a view. Or, alternately, establishing one allowing same-sex marriage. Yet I would fight against it. I do so because I believe that marriage is, at its core, a private contract issue. Obviously, as a Christian I see it as significantly more than that on the whole, but at its core it is a contract between two people. As a Christian, I see it as a contract and a pledge made before God, with deep and permanent commitments—but a contract nonetheless. I think it is absolutely critical that we see it this way as well. This is an area where we have fallen into superstition as Christians. We believe that a wedding is not properly done unless there is a minister officiating. Yet there is absolutely nothing magical about a pastor or elder officiating a ceremony. Anyone could do it, or you could do away with the ceremony altogether and you would be just as married if you have made the commitment to each other. I would argue it should be a public commitment for various reasons I won’t go into here, but that is the crux of the issue. And maybe you want to seal it with a signed document between the two of you stating your commitment to each other. (Not a prenum, a literal marriage contract). That’s all great.
Unfortunately, because the government now gives varying preferences based on your marital state (particularly in regards to taxes, inheritance, etc) they have opted to require certain sorts of people to sign off on a marriage. AFAIK, not just anyone can perform the ceremony and sign the document, they have to be authorized by the state. (I specifically did not want our pastor to say ‘power invested in me by the state of blah’ in my own wedding, because I do not recognize its power or its influence in terms of my wedding—and that was 15 years ago.)
Now, you might think I’m crazy on this point, but I’ll tell you I’m in good company. I was researching something else last week, and I stumbled across some commentary on this by Charles Spurgeon. Now, I won’t go so far as to say he agrees with everything I said here, but as far as his agreement goes, I think it is enough as Christians to give us pause in allowing the State to re-enforce such superstition.
Upon the same spirit as it crops up in reference to marriages and burials we need not remark. Neither of these things are in themselves our work, although, as they furnish us with excellent occasions for doing good, it is well for us to attend to them. At the same time here are two threads for the syrup of superstition to crystallize upon, and it will do so if not prevented.
The ignorant evidently attach some importance to reading or speaking over a corpse at a funeral, and do not regard the service as meant wholly for themselves, but as having some sort of relation to the departed. To have a gracious exhortation and prayer at home, and then lay the dear remains in the tomb in solemn silence, would be regarded as barbarity by many, and yet it would be no unseemly thing. To give the minister liberty to keep to the word of God and prayer, and release him from serving sepulchers, is according to apostolic precedent, and yet our churches would be grieved if it were carried out.
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By what process have these things come to be an integral part of our ministry? Are they really the business of the ministers of Christ? It is not meet that we should needlessly grieve any by refusing to attend upon either of these occasions, but we must take heed that we do not feed the sickly sentimentalism which makes the preacher necessary to them. We must all have seen how soon a superstition springs up, and therefore we must be on our guard not to water the ill weed.
